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THE 



WARNING OF WAR 



A POEM 



DELIVERED BEFORE THE 



UNITED SOCIETIES OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 



HANOVER, N. H. 



AT THE ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT, JULY 30, 1862, 



Charles T.'^Congdon, 



^\ 



" GOD'S MOST DREADED INSTRUMENT, 

IN WORKING OUT A PURE INTENT, 

IS MAN ARRAYED FOR MUTUAL SLAUGHTER: 

YEA, CARNAGE IS HIS DAUGHTER. "—«ur*!(.,)r«i. 




NEW- YORK : 

PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY FRANCIS HART & CO. 63 CORTLANDT STREET. 

186S. 



^hx^- 



To 



BIQJ^EY <gOW:fiIl(^ G-jlY, Esq. 



of JTew-Yorh. 



Iieceivey dear Gjy^ these rude but honest rhymes — 
Or all is good, in therrhj a d.eht, receivSj 
jSs uohat your pen has taug-ht me to believe. 

Or friendly converse in these hostile times.' 

Our sky is darlc and blood-red.; and the hour 
Full of ^od's wrath; yet if some small delight 
I^emain of happier days, 'tis yours of right j 

Who have not learned, in all your life to cozuer. 

Yours is the sorrovj ; yours is not the shame. 
Whose aye assid-uous finger has not failed. 
So many years to point to our ill fame, 
find, coming- retribution; ncvj assailed 



Our peace, no heart than yours will warmer yearv., 
' If but our wrong's -removed., to ma-rh our peace return ! 



THE WARNING OF WAR. 



The times need action, and the day demands 
The stern evangel not of hearts, but hands ; 
Or haply asks, to feed its martial fire, 
The ringing slogans of some Spartan lyre. 
We fly the field of ravage and of raid 
To seek again this academic shade ; 
Here leave awhile, as trumpet-tumults cease. 
The arts of war, to woo the arts of peace. 
Ah, vain endeavor ! e'en these cloistral aisles 
The shout still deafens, and the drum defiles ; 
Still through these groves, with desecrating light. 
Flash the long levins of the heady fight. 
The pale-faced student, bending by his lamp. 

Shuts up his book to dream of charge or camp, 
To vow that virtue still shall guard his home 

That serried Greece and knit the ranks of Rome. 

Why turn these folios with assiduous hand ? 

Ah ! what were learning if we had no land ? 
'T was she inspired ; at her benign behest, 

The patient toil — the long and devious quest! 

Ah ! what avails laborious pursuit. 



J 



If she no more exist to claim the fruit ? 
Close these dull annals, food for scorn and wit ! 
All history's worthless if her history's writ! 
Weep not for empires buried long ago : 
Reserve your requiems for this latter woe ! 
We'll grow pedantic over modern times — 
The sour, sad scholiasts of our own great crimes ! 
Vainly for us the historic beacon shines 
If we nurse Borgias here or Catilines. 
Builded our fathers that we might but add 
One warning more to all the world has had ? 
Must we be felse because our sires were true V 
Did they so deftly that we might undo ? 
Is it by their great virtue that we claim 
Baseness exempt — immunity for shame? 
'T were better then that our tradition's page 
Had paled and crumbled at the touch of age — 
That those who follow us might never know 
We were so dowried, and were bankrupt so ! 

The times need action ! 'round the soldier's name 
In stormy periods gathers triple fame. 
Brave thought must harden into deed as brave. 
Or stern endeavor, ere that thought can save. 
They serve who strike — they also serve who call! 
Yet words are but half-battles after all. 
'T is not for me, in my unstudied rhymes, 
To sing the epic of these stirring times. 
Yet, mid the misery of our hopes and fears, 
Our kindling rage, and bitter farewell tears ; 
Our homes to which, while gentle heart-strings break, 
The lost come not the vacant seat to take — 



Where with some gallant spirit's upward flight 

Love's roseate dreams have deepened into night ; 

Where bend we sadly o'er his slumbering clay 

Whom factious rage has slaughtered in its play — 

Yes, o'er our brave ones locked in their last sleep — 

Serve they not truly who but watch and weep V 

O ijentle mourners 'round the soldier's tomb. 

He walks in light, while you walk still in gloom ! 

His be the laurel, his the marble piled ; 

And yours — O what? O mother, wife, or child! 

Heaven keep our soldiers in their quiet graves. 

At home no trumpet sounds, no banner waves; 

There sit our mourners — silent sit, and wait; 

O cheer ! kind Heaven, these hearth-stones desolate ! 

See yonder field ! the soldier failing there 

To win some trophy he shall never wear. 

His long, long days of patient waiting o'er, 

Shared but one onset — ftite denied him more ! 

No herald's trump will sound his deeds or name ; 

No grateful voices greet him with acclaim ; 

One of a thousand, to the shades he flies, 

Unnoticed dares, or half unnoticed dies ; 

And all his pain and all his labor o'er. 

Divides his laurels with a myriad more. 

And this is battle ! In the morning beam 

Gay trumpets sound and gorgeous banners stream ; 

The charger's hoof, impatient for the start. 

Beats time responsive to the rider's heart. 

On to the battle-! With one cheerful cry 

A thousand voices swear to do or die. 

The evening falls ; and o'er the bloody plain, 

Where all was life, s-rim death asserts his rei^n. 



10 



III solemn awe above the scene we stand, 
The dead and dying strown on either hand, 
And ask what madmen urged this desperate fight? 
Who served for shame, and who die here for right ? 
One answer makes the earth and one the sky: 
He dies for right who dares for hand to die; 
And he strikes basely, heavy though his hand, 
Who smites the life and freedom of his land. 



In quiet times, when men give thanks to Peace 

For even days and multiplied increase, 

When all so softly all our fortunes foil. 

Life's little burthens scarce are felt at all. 

'Midst gentle pleasures and pacific art 

The world may lose its high heroic heart; 

Perhaps displace, for virtue pure and bold. 

Slow cankering sloth or feverish thirst for gold ; 

Written romances all our souls engage — 

The thin dilutions of some genuine age; 

And geTierous deeds are phantasies that glide 

Without a purpose down the centuries' tide; 

While we, dull souls, forget an antique race 

Makes its own epic, maugre time and place; 

Forget no earnest men in earnest days 

Turn work to sport, or politics to plays; 

Forget that souls are strengthened in the strife, 

And. truth alone in all the world has life. 

Still we creep on ; and day succeeds to day. 

And morn to night, with yet unclouded ray; 

Half steeped our souls in Sybaritic sleep. 

Like some gorged inject, through the flowers we creep: 

We eat our lotus upon Lethe's brink. 



11 



And, full of fancies, Imrdly deign to think. 

O idle dreamers, who so long have slept 

AVhile mortal foes around your couches crept ! 

O idle dreamers, that with eye half closed 

Have hoped, and doubted, and again have dozed ; 

And deemed that, trusting some fantastic lie, 

Some luck might save us, that we should not die! 

O idle dreamers, that against such shock 

Held up your creeds and crotchets orthodox — 

Say, did you laugh, or did you fall to tears, 

When burst the thunders on your frightened ears? 

How show your makeshifts by this war's red light. 

Your patent schemes of turning wrong to right ? 

How felt you, taught in this far different school, 

That fact is fact, a fool is still a fool ? 

That truth, though bravely smeared, is truth, and hence 

No safety lies in syllogistic fence ? 

That life-in-death can never rise to life ? 

If war but teaches this, then welcome strife ! 

O man of mouldy comment ! you thought best 
Some axiom stale or theologic test ; 
You compensation found for every loss 
0)f earnest truth, in some ingenious gloss ; 
And wondered why the nation had its cares 
While you at home assiduously split hairs. 
You proved that black was white, that cold was hot, 
And this and that — alas! what proved you not? 
That serfdom bri'ghtened freedom's holy flame ; 
That some must suffer now for Canaan's shame. 
You proved, by due comparison of polls, 
That facial angles arffue fatuous souls; 



12 



That Grod by outward types his will reveals — 

His love in short, his wrath in longer heels ; 

That man might be an angel or a hog — 

Some born for flogging and some born to flog ! 

You proved, good lack I at synod and at board, 

That truth brought peace and did not bring a sword; 

That christian taith, though cradled in a storm 

And born of protest, never must be warm ! 

Must argue, weigh, collate, must hem and haw. 

And out of quids and quods construct its law. 

Sermons should soothe, and bring, in words to please, 

Great contentation and pacific ease I 

Amen ! the fruit those sugary sermons bore : 

Half speech indeed — the other half a snore! 

Was waking rude ? Yet only once again 

Men fondly slumbered but to wake to pain, — 

But once again are sternly, sharply taught 

Peace basely sought for is but strife unsought. 

The dear old quips in mouths of dear old shirks, 

Evasions hugged and well beloved quirks. 

Great solemn nothings, emptinesses sage, 

And sophistries respectable for age. 

At war's rude touch to cindery ashes fall! 

Mambrino's helm's a wash-bowl after all ; 

The lance but punky touchwood, and alas ! 

The rider Sancho and the steed an ass ! 

Unhappy teachers that must thus be told 

What surely haps to things nor hot nor cold ! 

No wonder men at last, though late, reject 

In wrath the trimming, tepidarean sect, 

And cry, in spite of decency and damns, 

O, give us anything but solemn shams ; 



I 



13 



O better bloodshed, better bankrupt blight, 

Than lackering wrong to make it seem like right! 

better brigadiers in time of need 

Than Dr. Paleys run to dropping seed ! 

Better war's life, than non-resistance run 

To non-existence, ere life's work is done ! 

The doubt, the fear, the shivering delay, 

The base postponement of the reckoning day, 

May suit those souls that tremble on the brink 

Of action's tide, and fear to sw^im or sink; 

But he's a man half-hearted who'd abate 

One jot of faith in church alike with state. 

And life-in-death can never rise to life — 

If war but teaches this, then welcome strife ! 

man of law ! complacently you thought 
All statutes possible in Blackstone taught ; 
Or squeezed between the covers calf of Coke 
All that man needs — and all things else a joke; 
You w^ho have sworn no single inch to budge 
From where you're planted by some fine old judge; 
You who have stood prepared to bravely pit 
Six Latin phrases against human wit — 
«Six formal precedents drawn up with art 
Against all promptings of the human heart ; 
Who told us, hoarse and solemn as the daws, 
That Truth might lie, but Laws would still be Laws; 
Adored the virtues resident in rolls 
Although they took on execution souls ; 
And claimed ability to re-create 
His choicest handiwork to real estate ! 
Where now are those in whose defense you strove 



14 



Sometimes for lucre, sometimes but for love ? 

Lords of God's image, and by fifty laws 

Alike the lords of acres and of squaws ? 

Whips yield to swords; in closer ranks they draw — 

Defending what ? why, what but sacred law ? 

If tender-hearted mobs in some rash hour 

Dared when provoked to doubt a warrant's power, 

Or lifted up illegal hands to save 

Some panting wretch who fled a living grave, 

Ye gods, what howling! and, ye gods, what gloom! 

What dread foreboding of the crack of doom ! 

What solenni warnings and what wild alarms, 

Whih} all the streets were bristling with arms ; 

While coward judges, spite of gaping flaws. 

Declared one odious law the law of laws ! 

And where are they who in that sacred name 

Asked ns to do the thing to do was shame ? 

Asked us to save a nation in its need. 

Though cheeks should crimson, and though hearts should 

bleed? 
We heeded them : do they requite us thus ? 
We stooped to them when law commanded us. 
They taught obedience sternly: where are they 
When self-same law implores them to obey ? 
What warrant, save the signature of hell, 
Chartered these licensed sticklers to rebel ? 
If law for us alike and them was made. 
Why law for us, for them the felon blade ? 
Unhappy wretches we, who could not buy 
Peace at a price which good men thought too high ! 
Proud patriots they who call their crime a cause : 
Base helots we, just fit to keep the huvs ! 



15 



They make, and we observe : we make, and they 
Find that 'tis manlier then to disobey ! 

We reverence order, and we found the State 

Right to secure and passion to abate ; 

We buihl our social ramparts — make them strong, 

That selfish need may shrink from open wrong ; 

Each yields a part that each may bless the whole, 

And lynx-eyed justice license still control. 

We shrink from civil warfare's certain taint, 

And own, what Nature owns the last — restraint ! 

But surely no philosophy extends 

To scorn of vulgar means in quest of ends ; 

He 's but a dubious teacher who, forsooth. 

Can stoop to forty lies to fix one truth ; 

He tumbles back to ages coarse and rude 

Who yields to forty ills to win one good ; 

He's a poor builder who, with fervent hands, 

Raises — no matter what! — on quaking sands. 

He toils, and hopes, and patches on — and then 

Down falls the structure, sport for gods and men. 

And leaves him, vexed and baffled, but to cry 

It should have stood, and has not — Heaven knows why! 

"f was propped so nicely, and 'twas caulked so tight. 

And that one weakness so well out of sight. 

Might have remained so, all compact and stout, 

But ill-conditioned knaves would find it out ! 

A bad thing in itself quite good — but lo ! 

Since men will talk about it, down we go ! 

As great our ruin as was great our pride. 

In spite of plasters powerfully applied! 

How strange to find, when all is said and done, 



16 



The rule of gravitation working on I 

How strange to find, as we inspect the flaw, 

That Nature never yet repealed a Liw ! 

But spite of our " O bless us!" and " Good lack!" 

Quicksands are quicksands and a crack 's a crack ! 

Ah I if from all that now disturbs our rest 

Words could have saved us, had we not been blest ! 

riled we in vain, our coming fate to balk. 

These sheafs of daily, hourly printed talk — 

The dull report of speeches dull at lirst, 

In hearing bad, in type and record worst — 

The drivelling dribble of the tongue that speaks 

By rule one hour, but could go on for weeks. 

AVhat rules, what orders, fairly can restrain 

Great choirs of sjiouters spouting one refrain ? 

Though noisy dull, th<»ugh wordy void of sense, 

With nothing geniiine in them but pretense ! 

Then, could not ward us from these sorrows all 

The dull epistles of the illustrious small — 

]^>riniful of warning, which we did not heed 

Becaluse our faculties refused to read. 

Then, in long columns, now with kick, now hint. 

How many a sage has prophesied in print I 

And while the whirlwind hourly wilder grew, 

Went on, and wondered why the storm still blew! 

Alas I the sturdy demon would not sleep 

For all these charms, however dull and deep ! 

Till now, above the nation's wide-spread woe. 

We hear his mocking laugh, and cower below! 

Till now we find the evil days have come 

When science fails and subterfuge is dumb ! 

The bird of freedom marks with manv a shriek 



17 

I 

I 
i 

This moulting-time of her pretenses weak, j 

And finding now no virtue in a text, 

In trembling wonder waits for what may happen next ! 

Who knows ? The knot that kingly hands defied 

Was cut at last, but could not be untied. 

Sometimes the body of the commonweal 

Is cancered so it must submit to steel : 

New life is born of travail and of pain, 

And human freedom dies to live again : 

The actual cautery of this war may teach 

What lawyers could not prove nor churches preach. 

That, when our deeds are balanced 'gainst our word. 

The problem's solved by something quite absurd. 

We 've tried this formula of cold and hot : 
*'A11 men are free and equal — and are not; 
"God made of one blood all men — but, you see, 
*'IIe gave black blood to Sambo, blue to me; 
*'A11 men we hold — too plain a fact to show — 
"Born free and equal — that is, if 'tis so; 
"All men the scriptures prove are near of kin — 
"That is, all men who have a common skin ; 
"Freedom's the birth-right of all men that be, 
"Provided men can manage to be free. 
"The law's repealed against a pair of stools — 
"Four millions of exceptions prove all rules. 
"Extremes must meet, and thus you clearly see 
"Freedom is Slavery, and slaves are free; 
"So, the same thing by different name we call — 
"A fact well known to Jefferson and Paul!" 

Such speech too long has cheated — worse than this. 

We twisted human wretchedness to bliss ; 

Gave Bondage all that Liberty can please. 



18 



Arcadian raptures and a pastoral ease. 

Exempt from all that willing labor bears, 

Uneasy foresight, economic cares, 

The days flew by, insured the daily bread; 

The hand that flogged w^as still the hand that fed; 

Their wages heavy and their labor light ; 

Blacks lounged all day and fiddled through the night; 

Lapt in completest ease, their sweet career 

Ne'er raised a sigh, and never forced a tear; 

Reversed all fusty rules and notions old — 

The age for us was brass, for them was gold. 

Nor was this all : these chattels, void of sin. 

Lived in a faith that freemen could not win. 

And snatched, without the old alchymic pains, 

A golden pleasure out of iron chains — 

Feeling, in spite of many an ugly gash, 

A plerophoric rapture 'ueath the lash. 
' Twas Abraham's fingers fixed the welded bands; 
' Twas Moses heated and applied the brands ; 
' Twas Isaac paddled up the blistering chine ; 
' Twas Jacob that applied the cooling brine. 

These things, wliich forced sometimes the guilty shriek. 

Were dispensations from Mount Sinai's peak. 

We wrote in blood — for blood full often flowed — 

These needed margents of the Hebrew code: 

But Sambo, smiling, ov^-ned imputed taints ; 

He. suffered surely — suffered so the saints. 

Without the compensation that arose 

From holy hands inflicting sacred blows! 

Ah ! what a field for strengthening in the strife 

A love of Heaven and scorn of lower life! 

Ah I what a privilege to so endure 



19 



A bitter pang that death alone could cure ! 

The sable stoic, with perpetual grin 

Breasted the storm, and marched through thick and thin, 

While all was dark without, and all was light within! 

These were the tales they told us; we believed; 

Most acquiesced, though here and there one grieved, 

And for his pains the satisfaction had 

Of being stamped as traitorous or mad. 

He who could feel a brother's countless pains 

Was plotting treason or was ifiring fanes : 

He patriot only who in rose-light saw 

Whips, dungeons, fetters, tar-pots and lynch-law ! 

Thank Heaven, that day of dark delusion past. 

We think with pity — boldly speak at last ; 

That no more now, with diabolic skill, 

The foul enchantress moulds us at her will ; 

That sin no more, in quest of useful tools. 

Turns hearts to stone, and wise men into fools. 

We see it now : each thronging hope or fear 

Has purged our eyes, and lo ! what shames appear ! 

We ask with wonder why the satirist's flail 

So long has slept, while wrongs like these prevail : 

The savage hand that smote the unguarded weak, 

.Snatching Heaven's power its petty wrath to wreak; 

The code, that by one sweeping, searing ban, 

Crushed manhood out by systematic plan; 

The fears that aye with meddlesome control 

Trod out the slumbering fires of each poor soul — 

Watched every heart with such unwinking care 

Lest some poor spark of love should linger there ; 

The greedy avarice that, sharp and strong. 

Held back the wage of labor hard and long; 



20 



The lust that, hcirtlly half-true to itself, 
Polluted women for the sake of pelf; 
The stolid selfishness that tore apart 
Hands that God joined, and loving heart from heart ; 
And, trained all foolish feeling to despise. 
Heard but with scorn the infant's natural cries — 
Just for a moment in this world caressed, 
Then rapt forever from its mother's breast. 
We see it now — the schoolman's day is o'er. 
We feel it now, that never felt before. 
Some may be agitators, and some knaves ; 
He may be canting while the other raves; 
And this unsex itself, or man or dame. 
For notoriety, which they call fame ; 
One single diamond 'neath a sea of mud — 
One single truth upou a shoreless flood 
Of nonsense floating! Yet 'tis only fair 
We should admit that what is there is there ; 
And claim, for honor of our common kind, 
That none always are deaf — completely blind. 
If cold dull men, content to labor still 
In one unceasing logic-grinding mill, 
Worship the head while they ignore the heart, 
They serve a purpose though they act a part ; 
And though we're skeptical, or though we're sound, 
Upon that topic, still the world goes 'round, 
And as it goes must be content to hear 
\ Prophetic voices, though not over clear — 

The passionate oracles of men who see 
Too well to let their speech coherent be — 
Of men remembered through all coming years. 
Spite of their failures, with regretful tears : 



21 



Men who but make it better understood 
That human error mmgles yet with good — 
Men still of dignity in their disgrace, 
The just exponents of a fallen race. 
What though this pastor fired, not fed, his fold. 
And poor Sybilla mannish grew and bold — 
Seeking a height that sanity can't reach 
In freaks of costume or in frisks of speech? 
What though, sometimes in love, sometimes in wrath, 
They left for devious w^ays the beaten path? 
What though sometimes, the public ear to win. 
They used a language to abuse akin? 
What though, of no conventional shame afraid, 
They tried to startle who could not persuade? 
Am I so wise that I must look with scorn 
On human zeal, of human kindness born? 
Am I so pure that I can well disdain 
Truth trod to dust in weary throes of pain? 
Is faith so loved on earth, that earth now needs 
No words that blister and no breast that bleeds? 
All western winds— the sun-shine calm and sweet — 
The path of progress primrosed to our feet! 
Life but one round of rosy-fingered hours — 
, Perpetual arbors sweet with constant flowers. 
That woo our slumbers with their odorous breath — 
The dreams of Islam without Islam's death! 
Not so, I think, have Saxon legends told 
Of earth subdued in iron days of old. 
They'd some dull notion that bliss follows blows, 
And only after labor comes repose ; 
That he who'd taste man's possible delight 
Must win his title in the heady fight; 



I 



22 



That not one joy worth having, dear and deep, 

Conaes to a nation in its calmest sleep. 

If, then, this maxim rules creation's plan 

That what is hard is horrible to man — 

That what is difficult is dreadful — then 

Thrice happy worms, and thrice unhappy man ! 

Then every mocker who has made mankind 

His sport and shame, was wide-awake — we blind! 

Then we begin to see the dreadful drift 

Of laughing Rabelais and of sneering Swift ; 

Then we begin to see that all our tribe 

Deserved at least the Gulliverian jibe — 

The muddy mockery at earth's children cast, 

Dwarfs, monsters, beasts — pedantic fools at last ; 

The drivelling sots whom accident has made 

To eat and drink and sleep — perhaps to trade ; 

Then all our work so boasted of but seems 

Far less substantial than our lightest dreams ; 

They only wise who sought in cloistral night 

Surcease of struggling in a fatuous fight! 

Not by such fears, my land! thy fortunes rose. 

Ko dulcet dreamings waited on thy throes ! 

Thy men, wlio dared the battle, dared to think. 

Nor deigned' from any ripe result to shrink. 

When Naseby saw a tyrant's legions fly 

When Whitehall saw that tyrant justly die — 

When our great Milton, in defence of right, 

Gave up, with no regretful sighs, his sight — 

Ah ! who such offering can well despise ? 

The world so fair to his poetic eyes — 

When, Cromwell, emulous of truth alone. 

Scoffed at man's law, and took from God a throne 



23 



When that frail ship, with such a freight, came o'er 
The ungentle sea to this ungentle shore; 
When, famine stalking o'er the blighted field. 
They lived to die, but did not live to yield; 
When came those later days of struggle stout — 
Days that our fathers' history rounded out 
Throuf^h all these annals, (and what race can tell 
Of so much done, and so much done so well ?) 
We read with blinded and unworthy sight 
Who find not there that God will guide the right. 
War has its chances — and a bad chance must 
Sometimes lead feeble men to felse distrust. 
One battle lost, the craven may despair : 
The knightly soul reads victory's portents there. 
A righteous cause its champions never yields; 
It keeps its laurels though it lose its fields ; 
And though its men-at-arms five times may fly, 
Eternal justice was not born to die. 
Truth is a sun, and though the envious cloud 
May for a day its radiance enshroud, 
He's but a doting doubter who'd declare 
Only the cloud, and not the sun is there! 
We need this faith in error's final doom — 
.Need it alike in boisterous glee or gloom — 
Need it when victory purples all the press. 
And need it still when different tales depress ; 
Need it alike in failure and success. 
I've seen a man — and so, may be, have you — 
Smitten with grief and choking with ado. 
Who, having read of danger over nigh. 
Gave up the contest and began to cry. 
But yesterday to Heaven exultant tost. 



24 



He croaks to-day that all 's forever lost ; 
With piteous whine declares our well-tried braves 
Are simply cowards, and our statesmen knaves ; 
Admits, poor man, with self-denying groan, 
Our foe's the glory, and the shame our own; 
And, really, speaking as the country's friend, 
Thinks we should yield, and so the contest end! — 
Mourns that such quantities of blood should flow — 
And, if they will not stay — why, let them go! 
He'll something save — this strangely prudent man! 
His fortune first, the country, if we can ! 
No matter what with coming peace befall — 
The war 's well over when its o'er at all ! 
Ground arms at once! we may be happy yet 
With Slavery tempered by enormous debt. 
Accept these chattels as unpleasant facts! 
Coerce these rebels by our generous acts ! 
While they, admitted possible the slave, 
May give us back a part of what we gave, 
And all the nation lapse to primal bliss. 
Or something better than a war like this. 

O gentle logic ! O pathetic wail ! 

O sweet co'nfusion of the head and tail I 

O pleasing faith in what has failed before ! 

O velvet compromise, proposed once more ! 

He boasts no prophet skill, nor ponderous brain. 

Who sees and shows that you would fail again — 

Perhaps no prescience wond'rously wide-eyed 

To see and show you'll not again be tried. 

War has its vices, but it is not one 

That wars, for causes certain, backward run. 



25 



Freedom has follies, but 'twere hard if she 

Gave up her freedom that she miglit be free; 

Nor would it seem the wisest course to break 

All rules of right for justice's sweet sake — 

Although our weeping friends, in times like these, 

Aye stand prepared to show that chalk is cheese ; 

Which I, for one, admit not, though I go 

To axe or halter for not thinking so. 

Then trust we yet the faith our fathers gave, 

Though courts may sneer and cal^inets may rave. 

Trust we, while crafty interest once more tries 

The drear diplomacy of lackered lies, 

And seeks to waken in this hour of woe 

Quarrels men thought allayed so long ago. 

I blame not England ! I too long have known 

She held no other interest than her own ; 

I knew her custom was to proudly speak 

Sweet words sometimes; but kindness to the weak 

I never found, howe'er her love might roam, 

Preferred by her to what begins at home. 

I knew, although her orators might bawl 

Fierce tirades 'gainst the South in Exeter Hall, 

That Exeter Hall, perplexed by Hobson's choice. 

Is sometimes deaf and sometimes loses voice. 

I knew, whatever brilliant alms they give, 

The men of Manchester must spin to live ; 

I knew how seldom traders, east or west, 

Stand fast by truth when profit is the test ; 

I knew 't were hard to find one constant friend 

'Twixt Dukes who borrow — Democrats who lend; 

I knew that gold wonld make our Bashan dumb, 

And, knowing this, expected what has come ! 



i i' 

Ji! 



•26 



And say but here, in non-committal verse, 

It might be better, and it might be worse. 

The hand that smote the shivering Indies down 

To add new jewels to a burthened crown ; 

The iron hand that all the world has felt, 

From barbarous black man to enlightened Celt ; 

Still used to crush the unresisting kern, 

Has found a velvet touch the last to learn. 

And yet as softened manners might not show 

A softer heart their complaisance below. 

We '11 take our English cousin as we find 

The wond'rous man — half gentleman, half liindl 

As now the gold, and now the brass we see. 

Confess our wonder such a beast can be ; 

And, laughing, own, good-naturedly, at last 

Our comprehension thoroughly surpassed ; 

Own that our morals get unusual shocks 

When morals mix with fiuctuating stocks; 

Own that, when well observed, at last we lind 

A specie balance awful to the mind ; 

Own that ten million yards of cotton cloth 

Cut down to five, should make the spinner wroth ; 

So, shaking hands and giving up our rounds. 

We count' our dollars — and John counts his pounds; 

Thrice happy both — if truce like that were o'er — 

Or pounds or dollars made one virtue more. 

I think 'twere manlier if our nerves were less 

Inclined to this gratuitous distress, — 

Self-poised, in spite of steamboats and of mails. 

Of foreign praises, or of foreign wails. 

He is a character but dwarfed and dim 

Who says too much of what men say of him. 



27 






The elder Roman bore himself the same, 
His shoulder high, whatever tidings came : 
Still high in latter days their port was borne, 
Though Vandals plucked Patrician beards in scorn. 
And thus, my country ! dignified through all, 
Whatever wreck, whatever ruin fall. 
Keep thou thy center, though thou may'st not move- 
Like great men troubled, such as gods approve. 

trust, my shaken land ! in all to find 
Thy peace in virtue and the solid mind ; 
Unmoved by desperate fortune, and untost 

By factious strife, though battles may be lost. 
He who can brave the worst, is strong to meet 
The leaden leaders of some London sheet — 
The purchased wrath of hack and garreteer. 
Who works at once on ignorance and beer — 
The long drawn libels, sharp and superfine. 
Writ for a dinner, paid for by the line. 

1 read them calmly, and I franklv own 
England has men of better stuff' and tone. 
One honest voice, like thine, O honest Bright ! 
Is worth far more for reason and for right 
Than all tliis doubtful truck-work that reveals 

«A coward placeman trembling for his seals. 
Who fears appeal, when all this slime is cast. 
From England present unto England past ? 
When, both our fortunes blended into one, 
Our common histories in one current run ? 
True sous of England, we'll forget this hour. 
When figures false to facts alone have power. 
For days to man of higher hope and health — 
Of Magna Charta and the Commonwealth ! 



28 



Turn back our tlieme ! I know not, as I write, 

The future, hidden well from human sight. 

I only know that, by eternal laws, 

There is no failure for a righteous cause ! 

And knowing this, by reason's eye is seen 

A state self-centered — vital, yet serene. 

A state that gives to all an equal share 

Of all her blessings, and her common care ; 

From whose broad l>osom, with an equal flow. 

Draw sustenance alike the high and low ; 

Whose gentle hand to all alike imparts 

Whate'er she gains of learning and of arts ; 

Who, leaving all to learn or all to teach, 

Eespects opinion and a liberal speech ; 

And, free from every taint of courts or kings, 

Disdains to call her happy children things ! 

And though with enterprise of sharpest ken 

She buy and sell, will buy and sell not men. 

On those wide plains, now lone beneath the skies, 

Her tribes extend, and new-born cities rise ; 

Our Saxon speech is heard from shore to shore; 

Our Saxon homes with happiness run o'er; 

Our simple laws, calm, temperate and plain. 

Invite once more the migratory train, 

From want and hard oppression o'er the sea. 

To rest them in this Canaan of the free ! 

Is this a dream ? Ye generous minds, that here 
Have something learned of human hope and fear ! 
Have something of a nobler nature caught, 
From all that high philosophy has taught, 
Sav, while the lisht of vouth is restins- now 



29 



In morning freshness on each unbent brow ; 
Say, while this ghxdsome summer time imparts 
Its ripening beauties to unhackneyed hearts, 
Is this a dream ? Your answer, loud and clear, 
In sounding action breaks upon mine ear ; 
And each replies: "This head, this heart, this hand- 
■ Take all I have, mv suftering, strusiilino- laiul ! 
But leave me still the right untouched to claim 

• Myself a part of thine unsullied fame ! 

• leave me, spite of all this gathering gloom, 
Heroic life or unpolluted tomb!" 




TO SCHOLARS. 



i 



FRANCIS HART and COMPANY 

63 Cortlandt Street, New- York, 

Have every facility for the manufacture of BOOKS and PAMPHLETS. 

They have a large and varied stock of types, use R. Hoe & Company's 
best presses, pay especial attention to proof-reading, employ none but care- 
ful workmen, and believe themselves competent to please the most exacting. 
Authors or associations who contemplate the pubHcation of Poems, Essays, 
Addresses, Catalogues, Magazines, or Newspapers, will be furnished with 
estimates of cost and samples of workmanship. 

Their prices will always be found as low as those of any reputable printer 
in the city. 

Diplomas, Certificates, Programmes, Tickets, Commencement Cards, and 
every variety of Job Printing tastefully executed either by Letter-press, 
Lithographic or Copper-plate process. 

Foreign and American Writing Papers of all weights and qualities on sale. 



Theo. L. DeVinne. 



Francis Hart. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




016 115 978 5 • 



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